1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having a mechanism for cleaning an edge portion of a recording material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, an image forming apparatus of an electrophotographic system makes areas where no image is formed are provided as margins in upper, lower, right, and left portions of a recording material, thereby preventing an image loss, or toner contamination in the apparatus due to an image projection that is caused by a positional precision deviation of the recording material and an image forming area.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-171554 shows an image forming apparatus for forming a marginless image that a toner image is formed up to edge portions of a recording material without providing margins. In the case of printing the marginless image, a toner image which is slightly larger than a recording material is formed onto an image bearing member such as an intermediate transfer material and the toner image on the image bearing material is transferred onto the recording material. In this manner, even if the position of the toner image on the image bearing member and the position of the recording material are slightly deviated, no margins are caused on the recording material.
However, there is a possibility that the toner in the portion overflowed from the recording material in this instance is deposited to a frame (edge portion) of the recording material.
In the image forming apparatus of the electrophotographic system, generally, the toner is fixed onto the recording material by applying a heat and a pressure to the recording material after the transfer by a fixing apparatus. However, since the heat and pressure are not efficiently transferred in the frame of the recording material, there is a case where the toner is not fixed even after the recording material passed through the fixing apparatus. There is such a problem that the toner contamination of the edge portion of the recording material after the recording material passed through the fixing apparatus is removed later, so that a circumference is contaminated by the toner.